"Phrases in Cantonese" can be found like all good books in appropriate Hongkong book stores, if it hasn't been sold out already.

If this is not an option, it is also offered on Amazon, but not on every Amazon. Amazon.co.uk does offer it. Btw. the page comes with a book review of mine telling one of the reasons why also this book is far from perfect. If Amazon is not an option either, you may get the ISBN from the Amazon page and order it through your local book store.

Thanks Helmut, I think this sounds like the book for me despite its drawbacks. Vocabulary choice is less important to me than just including characters (I can't believe how often these are ignored; I can't imagine learning Chinese without characters) and classifiers is good enough for me. And anyway, food words are pretty important. It took me quite a bit of poring over snatched takeout menus to be able to reliably order something good to eat at any noodle, roast meat, and congee shop.

Has anyone tried the new "Dictionary of Cantonese Slang," apparently just out in June? This sounds like the Holy Grail to me.

Also, while we're on the topic of learning resources, I found a book/tape set in HK published by Greenwood Press by Cream Lee called "Current Cantonese Colloquialisms." It isn't a reference book, and as the cover says it is pretty advanced, but it has a LOT of phrases- with colloquial written forms and traditional equivalents- that you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else.

About this new "Dictionary of Cantonese Slang"... I haven't found it at any bookseller's site, but you can order it from the publisher at http://www.hurstpub.co.uk/ However, it is very expensive! Still, if it is what it says it is, I will fork over the money for it. I have sent an e-mail to one of the authors asking him to clarify a couple issues before I make my decision, though. If it turns out to be the best book ever I will certainly let people know. I just hope it doesn't focus TOO much on 粗口。

I'm not sure if this is being referenced in the above posts, but, if it's not, it's apparently available for ordering via Amazon.com as of August. It's publishied by the Chinese University Press and is 412 pages. Sounds interesting to me and may be pertains to the above discussion. Or not.

It's really nice that so many people interested in Cantonese and I found the messages post are really helpful.

By the way, I would like to ask if anyone can suggest me a comprehensive chart of Cantonese pronounciations (ie. romanization symbol of each existing sound) which match with Chinese characters. I think it will be very helpful for beginner.

Polly Shum wrote:By the way, I would like to ask if anyone can suggest me a comprehensive chart of Cantonese pronounciations (ie. romanization symbol of each existing sound) which match with Chinese characters. I think it will be very helpful for beginner.

Some of the dictionaries are all in Chinese and are some of my best and favorites (without English definitions). For example all of my Minnan dictionaries and glossaries are this way (all the English translated ones are over 100 yrs old, out of date, and not easy to use--and I don't even both with them). In China, it's rare to find two-way dictionaries.

Chinese characters are far more intricate than western letters of the alphabet; (It is worth noting however that each character contains meaning, whereas a western character is simply part of a word) and the complexity of the characters can be daunting at first. Take heart that it is definitely not as difficult as it first appears - after just a few lessons everyone in our class was writing the simpler characters with ease!

The first thing to learn is the correct stroke order, a common mistake is to try and draw the characters. This is a serious error for several reasons:

You are supposed to be writing not drawing. How quickly do you think you'd be able to write in English if you drew each letter, sometimes going right to left, up to down, clockwise or otherwise? If you analyse your handwriting you will see that you always write each letter the same way, without conscious thought; Chinese should be no different to this.The characters have an aesthetic beauty of their own, probably because they used to be scribed artistically with a brush. If you write them in the correct manner your calligraphy will look better, even using a biro.There is no alphabet in Chinese so one of the methods of looking up characters in a dictionary is by the number of strokes. If you are not writing using the correct number of strokes you won't have a hope of using such a dictionary.Having said all this, I suppose I should explain the rules of writing! Horizontal strokes should always be written from left to right:Vertical strokes should be written from top to bottom: Boxes are written with three strokes. Start with the left edge, then one continuous stroke for the top and right edge. Then close the box with the base:"Hook" strokes are made by doing a vertical stroke down and flicking up at the end to form the hook. eg the centre stroke in: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------